This very cup, holding this very fine pen, sat on a desk in our room. The coffee cup was from the hotel’s restaurant. The pen is our own.

When we returned to our room, housekeeping had straightened up and the cup was gone. So was our pen. Stretching a bit, I can understand that the maid might take the cup and return it to the property’s restaurant, even though it was being used (as a pen-holder). But how could she take the pen along with it? Is she blind? Was she so rushed that she didn’t notice? Didn’t it rattle or clink as she carried the cup away?

She returned the pen eventually, before we had to ask for it.